I too am a duped consumer of BHA! I signed on with BHA in October 2001 in the hopes of pursuing the next and perhaps my final step in my career (I have over 20 years in the IT industry, including starting and running my own small business in IS/IT consulting).
After nearly 10 years of honing my skills at this level I was ready to offer my services to a larger firm in a senior capacity.
Based in Ottawa, I was taken in by a their scripted sales pitch, they indicated that with my skills both in the IS/IT arena and my transferable skills, that within 6 months getting a 6 figure senior role with a firm in my area of expertise would not be a problem. Their promises included having access to an elite contact network, so $8500.00 and 2.5 years later the only thing I have to show for this are the following:
I went through 1 or maybe 2 career consultants.
The first rep was based in Ottawa and if anything is the one redeeming quality in this experience. I believed she truly cared for her clients and as such she quit the firm within the first year that I was there. I was told that I was to get a replacement agent, Hmmmm never saw or heard from him/her..
After finding my next piece of work, not what I was really after when I signed on with Haldane and with no help from them, the manager in Ottawa started to ignore my phone calls and emails.
I have not heard from them since my first rep quit the firm.
Now a really interesting point to bring up, during my stay with Haldane, I kept pressing them for their "hidden market" contacts that they are so proud to claim are theirs. I was actually told by the Ottawa manager that they were working on that. I later found out through my own network of people that Haldane actually called senior people that they had asked me about in previous sessions with them. Haldane was basically giving my own network back to me.
Now with that being said, and in the interest of being fair, I did meet with one senior VP from a start-up firm. The only one from Haldane outside my own network. One meeting in 2.5 years.
My end goal was to find the senior role that I wanted by expanding my network of senior decision makers, for this I was willing to part with my money. Spend a little to gain a lot was the idea I had.
This brings up the last point, while at Haldane I was very much in touch with other clients utilizing their services.
One fellow actually stated to me that it was my network that got him his first two job interviews, although he did not get the job he said the best thing about Haldane was meeting me.
PS: Stay AWAY from BHA!
Chris
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada
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